Unsafe care results in over 3 million deaths each year globally. It is estimated that over half of these deaths are preventable. The majority of harm occurs in resource-constrained contexts, where systemic factors relating to context, complexity of care, organisational behaviour, human factors, wider socio-political influences impacting both health-seeking behaviours of patients and governance and regulation of health systems, together with significant workforce shortages, contribute to an increased risk of adverse events.

The scope and nature of challenges impacting patient safety in low resource settings remain under-studied and largely undocumented. The ‘Global patient safety action plan 2021-2030’ outlines potential strategies to improve patient safety, however, as contexts vary greatly, it is unclear which interventions might work, for whom and under which circumstances. Limited material resources, unclear governance and accountability structures, and insufficient resourcing, create unique contextual challenges for the adoption, implementation and embedding a culture of patient safety and quality improvement initiatives and directly impact patient outcomes. Learning from adverse events is further constrained by limited ability to capture, measure, report, and enable feedback to empower local health systems, policymakers and communities to improve patient care.

In this Research Topic we invite articles that explore the challenges of providing high-quality care in low resource settings, and the strategies, methodologies and evidence of good practice that might be used to overcome these challenges in a wide range of low resource settings across both high- and low-income contexts, and across all healthcare disciplines, including mental health.

This article collection aims to capture the mechanisms by which interventions improve quality and safety in a variety of low resource settings, share generalisable learnings, and explore how to best design and measure impact of patient safety interventions globally.

Research papers we welcome may include (but are not limited to):

• Empirical research studies that aims to explore and/or improve quality and safety of care in low-resource settings globally.
• Review articles that identify and describe strategies and policies that have led to improvements in patient safety in low resource settings.
• Evidence syntheses that explore patient safety or quality of care for specific populations in resource-constrained settings globally.
• Impact evaluation of patient safety and/or quality improvement initiatives, and their generalisability to low-resource settings.
• Articles which capture the range of methodologies that might be used to measure and evaluate patient safety and quality of care
• Studies which explore the role of patient and public involvement in patient safety for low resource settings.

We welcome research from a broad range of settings, populations and clinical and non-clinical areas, focused on the wide range of patient safety areas outlined above.

Submit your idea

Impact

Frontiers in Health Services

Submit your idea

Impact